photo: Rainiel Rodriguez (Brian Walton/The Cardinal Nation)
The St. Louis Cardinals’ rookie level Jupiter-based Florida Complex League club improved slightly to fourth place while posting a sub-.500 record for the sixth straight season. Pitching and hitting were in the bottom third of the league but baserunning and defense improved. The promising start to the season changed 18 games in, when catcher Rainiel Rodriguez was promoted upward.
By Paul Ivice and Brian Walton
Baby steps for the Baby Birds
After losing six in a row in early July and falling into last place, the rookie level Florida Complex League Cardinals righted the nest to win six of their last nine games of the season and escape the division cellar.
Yet, the Cardinals did not log a winning month in 2025.
| Month | Wins | Losses |
| May | 9 | 9 |
| June | 8 | 12 |
| July | 7 | 10 |
| Total | 24 | 31 |
Even so, finishing fourth with a 24-31 record was an improvement over their results in recent years. The Cardinals broke their five-season streak of fifth place finishes that began in 2019 in the Florida Complex League East Division, and its Gulf Coast League predecessor. They came up just one win shy of matching their highest win total since they last won the division in 2018.
Still, 2025 marked the FCL Cardinals’ sixth consecutive losing season.
Against the Mets (8-6), Marlins (6-7) and Nationals (6-8), the Cardinals were pretty much a .500 club, but their struggles (4-10) against the runaway division-champion Astros sunk their season.
| FCL East | W | L | W % | GB | RF | RA | RD |
| Astros | 37 | 16 | .698 | — | 298 | 196 | 102 |
| Nationals | 30 | 25 | .545 | 8.0 | 274 | 235 | 39 |
| Mets | 25 | 28 | .472 | 12.0 | 199 | 237 | -38 |
| Cardinals | 24 | 31 | .436 | 14.0 | 233 | 260 | -27 |
| Marlins | 19 | 35 | .352 | 18.5 | 224 | 300 | -76 |
The biggest improvement of the 2025 FCL Cardinals over recent iterations of the team was on defense. In each of the past three seasons, the Baby Birds had committed the most errors in the league, averaging more than 93 per season. In contrast, the 2025 team committed just 73 errors, second to the Astros in the division and sixth fewest in the FCL.
The 22 errors the Cardinals committed in 14 games with the Astros, which led to 11 unearned runs, was fewer than the 25 errors and 14 unearned runs by the Space Cadets. However, that didn’t help the Cards overcome the Astros’ 24-hit, 13-walk advantage compiled in 14 games, as the Houston club outscored the Cardinals 77-61.
The 16-run differential normally wouldn’t result in such an imbalance as a 10-4 record (the Cardinals were 6-8 against the Nationals with the same 16-run deficit), but two of the Cardinals’ three double-digit scoring outbursts during the season were against the Astros, 15-1 and 11-5.
The Cardinals played even tighter defense against their other three opponents. In fact, in every season series, the Cardinals made fewer errors and allowed fewer unearned runs than their opponent.
The season’s turning point
Four weeks into the season, the Cardinals were performing relatively well, with a 9-8 record and a division-leading plus-32 run differential.
During the next week, catcher Rainiel Rodriguez was promoted to Palm Beach. At that time, as a team, the FCL Cardinals had 10 home runs, seven of which he hit. Even though five games had passed since his hot streak, during which the 18-year-old homered in four consecutive games, Rodriguez’ benefit was huge.
Honoring his hot streak, the FCL named Rodriguez the Player of the Week in mid-May and the league’s Player of the Month for May.
Without Rodriguez, over the final five weeks, the Cardinals went 9-14 with a minus-53 run differential. The team didn’t produce another home run for 10 games, and finished the season with 18, fewest in their division and 13th in the 15-team league. Without Rodriguez, the Cardinals would have been dead last in long balls in the FCL.
Even though they lost their power component, they still had speed to boost their offense – until they didn’t. Prospect shortstop Yairo Padilla stole 24 bases in 28 attempts before suffering a season-ending injury on July 5. He missed the final 23 games as teammate Yancel Guerrero eventually passed him by, the latter finishing with 26 steals.
The team’s two highest-ranked position players, two 18-year-olds from the Dominican Republic in their second year of pro ball, were expected to lead the offense. Rodriguez and Padilla did that for as long as they were in the lineup, but they simply weren’t active long enough.
Those were some of the factors steadily building toward the Cardinals’ complete collapse in Week 10, perhaps triggered by the injury to Padilla. But the biggest cause was the pitching staff, which had a 4.l5 ERA through 40 games, then had a 7.53 ERA during the six-game skid.
Even so, the Cardinals’ lone 2025 FCL All-Star was a pitcher, Alan Reyes. In 14 relief appearances, the right-hander posted a 0.70 ERA, held opponents to a .155 batting average and fanned 26 against nine walks in 25 2/3 innings.
Opportunism in wins
Batting average with runners in scoring position was a key factor in Cardinals victories, so we tracked that through the season. In their 24 wins, they were 73-for-281 (.260) with a runner in scoring position. They were 44-for-269 (.164) with RISP in their 31 losses.
For comparison, Cardinals opponents were 95-for-355 (.268) with RISP when they won and 25-for-185 (.135) when they lost. It wasn’t until the final week when the opponents’ batting average with RISP in their wins rose above the Cardinals’ average in their wins.
Team stats – season
When all was said and done, in Willi Martin’s managerial debut, the Cardinals were a bottom-third team in the FCL, ranked 11th in both staff ERA and runs scored per game.
Offense (in the 15-team FCL)
The stolen base category was the only major offensive measure in which the Cards were not in the bottom third of the league.
- Runs – 233 – 11th
- Hits – 328 – 13th
- Doubles – 65 – tied for 11th
- Triples – seven – tied for 12th
- Home runs – 18 – 13th
- Stolen bases – 139 – second-most
- Strikeouts – 497 – fifth-most
- Walks taken – 237 – fourth fewest
- Batting average – .214 – 13th
- OBP – .336 – 12th
- Slugging – .301 – 14th
- OPS – .637 – 14th
Pitching (in the 15-team FCL)
Though team ERA was 11th of 15, same as the offense’s run scoring, other pitching stats were slightly better. Even so, the staff clearly was a bottom-half unit.
In an oddity, over the entire 55 game season, the Cardinals starting staff did not earn a single win. As a group, they went 0-12 with 43 no-decisions. Of course, a major reason is that the starters averaged fewer than three innings per outing. The Cards starters’ 156 inning total is fourth fewest in the league.
The bullpen was a collective 24-19, though as noted just below, their ERA was 11th of 15 FCL teams. The relievers threw the eighth-most innings at 260.
- Team ERA – 4.67 – 11th
- Starters ERA – 4.27 – 9th
- Relievers ERA – 4.95 – 11th
- Hits allowed – 364 – tied for 10th
- Batting average against – .232 – 10th
- Walks issued – 252 – right in the middle (eighth most and eighth fewest)
- Strikeouts – 465 – right in the middle (eighth most and eighth fewest)
What is next
The Cardinal Nation’s 2025 minor league season review articles will continue with the Class-A Palm Beach Cardinals next up.
The full schedule for The Cardinal Nation’s annual article series highlighting team results and top hitters and pitchers across the St. Louis Cardinals system can be found in the following article. After our free Team Recaps across affiliates, we will recognize individual player leaders through the current month and into November.
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